Dearly Departed
by Ink Viper
Summary: [I want you to do this. I want you to become stronger, and this is what you need] Because to Naruto, Sasuke always came first.


Disclaimer: Own nothing-- my first fic, so be gentle. It's the only way you get it through my thick skull.

Warning: OOCness, short and sucky

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"No."

The refusal is swift, curt and deliberate-- in other words, completely and utterly Sasuke Uchiha to the core. Naruto hadn't expected anything less. But Sasuke would come around. He always did, in the end.

"What the hell," the Uchiha hissed furiously, "is going on in that thick head of yours? You honestly think that I would even consider--"

"I don't think," Naruto retorted coolly. "I _know_."

Sasuke reeled back for a moment, shock in his jet black eyes, barely hanging onto his composure. Naruto couldn't blame him. His best friend is used to the loud, brash, happy-go-lucky Naruto that he grew up with-- not this Naruto, this one that has already accepted the inevitable.

"You can't expect me to--"

"You have to," Naruto insisted softly. "How else will you beat him? How else will you avenge your clan?"

"There is another way!" Sasuke snapped, black eyes gleaming with barely suppressed emotions. "There is _always_ another way."

"Not this time, teme," the blond said gently, half-heartedly hoping the nickname would tip the scales in his favor. "This time, there is no back door."

Inwardly, the Kyuubi holder wondered just when in the argument he and Sasuke had switched roles-- Naruto being the one quiet and adamant, Sasuke being loud and persistent. His best friend is shouting at him, rage and desperation on his face-- rage because he's being asked--no, _told_-- to do something he doesn't want to do, and desperation because for once, _he's_ the one losing ground.

"--are you listening to me, dobe!" Sasuke's rant is winding down, and had this been any other situation, Naruto would be laughing at the look on the teme's face.

"I want you to do this. I want you to become stronger, and this is what you need," Naruto said stubbornly. The Uchiha prodigy shook his head violently, emphatically, but Naruto could see the faintest glimmer of regret from the ghostly half that hungers for power in his best friend's eyes, and knows he's winning.

"This is your dream-- your goal. To kill him. You need the Mangekyou Sharingan to realize that dream," the blond pushed persistently.

"And what about your dream? To become Hokage and protect Konoha?"

"You were always were the one who was better for that job," the Kyuubi wielder admitted, not without some bitterness, because damn it, it _hurts_ to kill your dream. But he was doing this for Sasuke, for Konoha, for Tsunade and Jiraiya and everyone else, and that was all that mattered.

"Dobe..." There. He's giving. They needed to finish this quickly, before Sasuke could think things through. Naruto pulled a kunai from his belt and walked closer to his friend, extending the weapon to him hilt first. The ebony-eyed teen backed away from it, his eyes locked onto his comrade's face, not the kunai.

"Sasuke..." Naruto said in exasperation. His friend would have killed him without turning a hair in the Valley of the Ends-- what was stopping him now? Sasuke shook his head again, black eyes brighter than they should be.

"I can't, Naruto. Don't ask me to," he says softly, almost as if he's afraid of his own words. For the first time, the blond felt a twinge of guilt at what he was asking his friend to do, but his was a burden that needed to be shouldered. No shinobi had hands that were free of bloodstains.

"Yes, you can," Naruto insisted yet again, and this time he takes Sasuke's hand and wraps it around the kunai, and Sasuke does not resist. This is power that he cannot let slip through his fingers, and they both know it.

"The pain will only last a second, and even then, it's only pain," the blond encouraged gently. This cold comfort, whispered words in a freezing tomb, is all that they have, but they are shinobi, and they will take what they can get.

_Come on teme, you can do this. Do it for your family, your vengeance, the village...do it for me._

Naruto didn't know how long they stood there-- seconds, minutes, hours, but suddenly Sasuke _moves_, lightning fast and the kunai is hilt-deep in the Kyuubi holder's flesh, and then his friend is pulling it out and flinging it away, leaving a dotted trail of blood in it's wake. The agonized, horrified look in his black eyes is enough to make Naruto cringe in pain even worse than what he's feeling physically.

Sasuke placed his hand over the wound in the blond's chest, trying to staunch the crimson tide of life with his bare hands. Naruto winced a little, but as he had said before, pain is only pain, even if it hurts like hell. But despite it all, he doesn't regret the choice he made.

"See?" he muttered. "You could do it, after all."

"Shut up, dobe." Grief makes Sasuke vicious, and anger even more so. Why was he so angry? Wasn't he happy he had gotten the power he desired?

"I won't use it," the Uchiha said abruptly. Naruto blinked, feeling peevishly annoyed and dizzy at the same time. "It's--"

"A gift," Naruto interrupted. "A gift, from me to you. Don't waste it, and don't make my death in vain, teme." Sasuke is not the only one who can be sharp.

"Why?" hissed the black-haired teen. "Why did you want to die? This isn't an out of the blue decision. You--"

"I trust you," the blond murmured hazily, blood slipping from the corner of his mouth. "You'll do what I can't. The villagers will be happy, at any rate. No more demon walking around and blowing things up..." He avoided the question, but didn't deny it.

It's only then that Naruto realizes Sasuke is crying, and he stared at the drops in fascination, watching the light bounce off them as his friend's face goes in and out of focus. He only wished he wasn't the reason Sasuke was crying. People shouldn't cry over demons.

"Hey, teme? Do me a favor, and kick your brother's ass around the block a couple times..."

"Sure, dobe," Sasuke said automatically. Naruto smiled faintly, his eyelids fluttering shut.

"Good."

He didn't open his eyes again.

"Dobe?" Hesitantly, Sasuke touched his comrade's face, and discovered that his flesh was cool, and his breathing slight. After a few seconds, even that stopped.

"Naruto..." he whispered brokenly, burying his face in the Kyuubi holder's bloody jumpsuit. Sasuke curled up against his best friend's body, shaking hands twisting and gripping the stained fabric.

He didn't think he'd be moving for a long time.

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"A gift, huh dobe..."

Sasuke stared out at the forest, feeling the faint sting of his now-activated Sharingan. A year. A whole year had passed since that day, but it still felt like yesterday that Naruto had come to him and offered him his life. A willing martyr, lamb on an altar, a live sacrifice.

But Sasuke would not waste this power, Naruto's last gift to him. He would kill Itachi, and then it would all be over.

_The difference between you and me, brother... You took the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan by force, and mine was given to me of Naruto's own free will. That alone shows how we differ._

Maybe, just maybe, when this nightmare had ended for the last time...

...perhaps he could go home.

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Okay, that's it GOODNIGHT PEOPLE! It's almost one in the morning, so I'm going to bed. Tell me if you liked it, hated it, the whole shebang.


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